


Cinderella, Dressed in Yella

by cyrene



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Canonical Child Abuse, Character Study, Child Loss, Domestic Violence, Suicidal Thoughts, Trigger Warnings, background Pynch and Bluesy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-10
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-04-30 22:55:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5182715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyrene/pseuds/cyrene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Moms are people too,” she says, her quiet voice revealing more than she means to, “even the shitty ones.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cinderella, Dressed in Yella

**Author's Note:**

> Um, I don't know what happened here. If you're reading this, thanks for giving it a shot, though! And also I'm sorry. I honestly didn't know what to rate this, because it's not graphic (shit, no more than canon!) but I have, like, a million potential trigger warnings up there. So I went with 'Mature" to be safe. Please read the tags for trigger warnings; I would hate to upset anyone more than reading a sad story usually entails. 
> 
> No beta, so all errors are on my own silly head. Also, this is not my usual writing style; I was trying something new to suit my choice of narrator. I can only hope it worked.
> 
> Title is from an old skip-rope rhyme that goes like this:
> 
> "Cinderella, dressed in yella  
> went upstairs to kiss a fella  
> made a mistake and kissed a snake  
> How many doctors did it take?
> 
> And then however many times you can skip-rope before you trip is how many doctors it took to cure poor Cinderella.

 

 

When she was six, she had to stay home from school because of a black eye. If she went to school she might get in trouble, and Momma said things like this needed to be dealt with as a family. Momma didn’t have the patience to deal with her being a nuisance around the house all day, and pointed her outside with orders to not show her face until lunch.

 

Robbie from across the street was home that day too. She could see his grinning from his front yard as he waved her over. His daddy must’ve been passed out or at work, or he would never have let her in the yard. Robbie’s daddy made hers look like a superhero.

 

“We match,” he said when she was standing in front of him, gesturing to his eye and hers.

 

She was two years younger than him, and a girl, but they played together until lunch time.

 

She saved the crusts of her bread from her lunch, and when they met up again she said, “Watch this!” She crumbled a bit of the bread in the palm of her hand, lining up the rest a little ways in front of her. “Stay still,” she ordered Robbie with a sideways glare, and he rolled his eyes but he stopped moving.

 

In a bit, she had lured in a bird, its scratchy talons resting on her fingers while it nipped up the breadcrumbs from her hand. She whistled a little tune and it stopped eating to cock its head at her. She whistled at it again, and it tweeted back to her. She and the bird went back and forth like that for a good minute before Robbie couldn’t stop himself from laughing anymore and scared the bird away.

 

“ _Robbie_!” she whined.

 

“You’re like goddamn Cinderella,” he laughed, “talkin’ to birds and tellin’ ‘em what to do and shit!”

 

She crossed her eyes at him and stuck out her tongue, pushing her nose up with her thumb and wiggling her fingers. “If I can tell birds what to do, then you must be a Robin, cuz you always do what I say!”

 

He laughs again, tells her, “The hell I do!” and asks, “Can you do mice too? Can you talk to trees too?”

 

“Cinderella don’t talk to trees,” she informed him tartly. “She gets rescued by a handsome prince and lives happily ever after.”

 

Robbie shrugged and, ignoring her pretty obvious proposal, said, “Well, maybe she can, she just never tried hard enough.”

 

 

***

 

 

She was sweating like a sinner in church.

 

It wasn’t just the August heat that did it, though her dress (yellow floral print, Goodwill, almost like new) was already beginning to stick to her back with sweat. She had told Momma she was going down to the dollar movie theater to see “Braveheart” with Lisa and Donna. Daddy wasn’t home yet -- thank fucking God, or he’d have probably seen right through her.

 

Momma just said “Whatever. Tommy, quit yer whining!” and swatted the offending child with her wooden spoon before stirring the pot again. Didn’t even look up from the stove for either part of that conversation.

 

She kept her face carefully blank as she left, but the face she made inside her mind was sneering with disgust.

 

Lisa, who had a car, was waiting outside for her. Lisa and Donna chattered to her the whole way to the movie theater about how lucky she was: _Robbie Parrish_ , with those dream-boat eyes, looking all intense like -- well, they couldn’t agree on which actor he looked like, but he damn well looked like _someone_! She laughed, and then All-4-One came on the car radio and they were all shrieking, and singing, “I can _love_ you, _BAAAAY_ -bee, I can love you like _that_!” with the windows rolled down as they cruised into Henrietta. They were sixteen, and unstoppable.

 

Then they were there, and she waved goodbye to her friends -- who were _actually_ going to ogle Mel Gibson, like she was supposed to be -- so she could sneak around back where her Robin was already waiting for her. He was leaning against the brick wall that surrounded the garbage dump on three sides, but he straightened up with a grin when he saw her coming. He looked her up and down, and she gave him a little smirk, but the face she made inside was beaming. She _knew_ she looked good, with the skirt of her dress flowing around her thighs and her strappy (secondhand, barely worn) white sandals, and her honey-brown hair hanging loose around her shoulders.

 

Her heart was a pounding drum that said, _Robbie, Robbie, Robbie_.

 

“Cinderella, dressed in yella,” he chanted in a teasing tone, holding out a white paper bag for her. “I brought you a cheeseburger and fries.”

 

When she took the bag she could see he didn’t quite get all the grease out from under his fingernails, but she knew he worked hard and she loved him for it. She ate in his car -- which he had fixed up by himself from _nothing_ \-- while they drove someplace else. The kind of place where they could have the privacy to hold onto each other and make promises about forever.

 

“In two years, I’m gonna marry you,” Robbie told her, his deep brown eyes serious and piercing. “I’m gonna save up my money and take you away from this shithole.”

 

She smiled at him and said, “Just like Cinderella.”

 

They made it back to the movies just in time, sharing one last hurried kiss before they parted. Donna brushed out her hair on the way back to her house and she pulled it up with the white scrunchie she kept around her wrist. Lisa spritzed a little body spray around her neck because, “Sweetie, you smell like you been _at it_.” It didn’t matter. Momma and Daddy were already asleep when she crept in the door and tiptoed to her room.

 

The night had a happy ending for once.

 

 

***

 

 

She goes into the bathroom with the excuse that she needs to tell Adam dinner’s ready. Other than to scoff, Robert doesn’t show any signs that he hears her over the local news on T.V. To be honest, the scoffing may have been at the news.

 

Adam is standing in front of the mirror, putting peroxide on the cut on his arm. It looks pretty bad, but not needs-stitches-bad, thank fucking God. When he sees her, his jaw sets in a way that is utterly familiar to her.

 

“Dinner,” she tells him quietly.

 

He looks behind her, checking to make sure she’s alone and the T.V. is loud enough. “Why am I bad for this?” he asks.

 

When he was little, and he was about to cry, his lower lip would tremble. When he got older, and more self-aware, he would bite the inside of his cheeks to stop it. She can see him doing it now, how it hollows his cheeks out and tenses his jaw, and she hates all three of them, and her parents, and her in-laws, and every goddamn person born on Earth since… well…

 

 

He is still looking at her, still wanting to know _why_.

 

“I don’t know,” she says wearily, sitting down on the toilet seat so lightly she doesn’t make a sound. “You’re not _bad_ ,” she adds belatedly, because that’s what she _should_ have said in the first place. Would have, if she weren’t a terrible mother.

 

She remembers when he was very young -- four, maybe? -- and she found him digging out in the yard with this same expression on his face. One that made her wonder what would happen if he ever met with an unstoppable force. When she demanded to know what the hell he thought he was doing to her yard, he stopped, squinting up at her with his eyes only shielded from the bright sun by his little hand. He showed her the unidentified seeds he held in his other hand and said, “I wanna know what things look like when they _flourish_.” She felt a shock of terror in her chest that she couldn’t account for -- what kind of four-year-old can use the word “ _flourish_ ” correctly? -- and murmured for him to finish and clean himself up before his father got home.

 

“I got a partial scholarship,” this current Adam says stubbornly, even though he’s already told them this, “and another job. I can pay for it completely, and have enough left over to help y’all out. When I’m done there, I can go to a good college, go be a lawyer or something, make a lot of money and be…”

 

He trails off, probably because she’s not saying anything. She’s just sitting there, frowning.

 

 _And be able take care of us when we’re old_ , she thinks. It’s a solid plan. She’s actually kind of proud of him for coming up with it, and doing it all himself. Even when he was little, he would get frustrated if she tried to help him too much. He always wanted to do it himself, whatever “it” was. She would just hold her hands up ( _I’m unarmed!_ ) and say, “ _You_ do it, then, you old mule! You do it _your_ way.” because Adam was not a bird, who would whistle her tune back at her. Wherever he was going, he was gonna get there his own way, even if it was the harder way.

 

She wonders if Robyn would have been stubborn like this too. _She_ used to be pretty stubborn herself.

 

She thinks maybe Robert’s right, and she’s a fucking useless woman who can’t even keep her son in line.

 

“I wanna _be_ somebody,” he says. His eyes are watery, but hard: there may be tears in there, but they _do not_ have his permission to leave. “Somebody worth knowing. I’m _doing_ this.”

 

 _I wanna know what things look like when they_ flourish _,_ she fills in for him.

 

She holds her hands up -- she is unarmed. “Dinner,” she sighs, standing up to leave. Because what else is she supposed to say? What does he _want_ from her?

 

Behind her, she hears him say to himself, “It’s already done.”

 

 _Who you tryna sell_ that _load to?_ she thinks in her Daddy’s voice. She shakes her head violently to rid herself of his ghost, and thinks about dinner instead.

 

 

***

 

 

She felt like she was going to puke. She’d been puking all day, though, and couldn’t possibly have anything left in her stomach.

 

“Let _me_ be the one to tell them,” she had told her Robin with a quavering smile, and he gave her her way.

 

What a stupid idea _that_ had been. Now Robbie was waiting outside on the stoop, and she was facing her parents down alone.

 

 _Oh, please, God,_ she prayed, _make my heart like a stone._

 

When the word “pregnant” left her lips, Momma frowned so hard, so fast that her whole face seemed to fold in on itself. She shook her head and muttered, “Damn fool slut!” before storming into the kitchen. She could hear things banging around in there -- pots, and cabinets, and the stomping of feet.

 

Daddy’s face turned progressively redder as he rose from his chair, walked to where she was standing (near the exit, like they planned) and backhanded her, right across her cheekbone and eye. She fell to the floor with a cry, pressing her fist against her cheek. He was shouting something, but she couldn’t understand what, because she was so dizzy and her whole head was ringing.

 

Then someone hauled her up off the ground, careful-like, and she looked up at Robbie’s blurry face. It was full up of love and hate, all mixed up at once. He set her on her feet and held her shoulders for a bit to steady her.

 

 _Dear Lord_ , she thought, rubbing at her swollen eye, _he’s gonna_ kill _him._

 

She didn’t know which “he” was going to kill which, but either/or could fit. Anyway, Robbie got the first hit, right to her Daddy’s face. Right where her Daddy had hit _her_.

 

“Don’t you put your _fuckin’ hands_ on her again,” Robbie snarled, shoving Daddy so hard he fell back into the sofa.

 

She grabbed Robbie’s shoulder before he could move forward again. He turned sharply. His face was twisted with fury, but she wasn’t afraid. She knew a lot about this, and that anger wasn’t for _her_.

 

“Let’s just go,” she told him quietly.

 

She stared up at him until his face cleared and he seemed to recognize her again. Her Robin nodded once, and led her out the door.

 

They slept in his car that night, because they had no place to go, and she cried. _I’m only sixteen_ , she thought. _What the hell am I supposed to do?_

 

They got married, is what they did. She dropped out of school. Robbie got them a real nice trailer, and they fixed it up together. Robbie was good at fixing things. He brought home a toaster and a coffee-maker someone had just thrown out with the garbage, and fixed them both up. Good as new. They could have coffee and toast in the mornings, though her coffee was mostly milk because of the baby. He brought home an old, crappy radio for the kitchen, which really only caught country stations. That was fine by Robbie, because he liked country, but she was always more of a pop or alt-rock girl. The house was quiet and lonely in the daytime. She could’ve used some Soundgarden or Pearl Jam to liven things up.

 

And they were poor as dirt, and he was tired all the time, but they were pretty happy because they had each other, and soon they were gonna have a baby.

 

Then one day in May, the skies were clear and the sun shone bright and warm, and she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. The nurses all said she was the _prettiest_ baby they had ever seen, but they probably said that to all the moms. She knew this baby was the prettiest one _she’d_ ever seen, though.

 

Her heart was a pounding drum that said, _Robyn, Robyn, Robyn_.

 

She told her Robin that the baby’s name was Robyn Ella.

 

He had been trying to wipe the tears from his eyes without letting her know they were there, but he laughed then, and said, “That’ll do.”

 

When Robbie held Robyn for the first time, he looked at her, unsure, and said, “We can do this, right? Girls are easier, right?”

 

She smiled, and nodded, and let him think that.

 

Robyn turned out to be the happiest baby she’d ever seen -- never a moment’s trouble -- and she wondered if Robbie was right about girls being easier in general. If maybe there was just something wrong with _her_.

 

 

***

 

 

Robert calls Adam’s school friends “faggots” _constantly_. She’s not really sure why, except that he hates them because they have money, and can use it to leave town whenever they want. She’s never really met any of them -- she thinks Adam is probably too ashamed to let them in the house, and that makes her both ashamed of her life and angry at her son -- but the one with the orange car seems like a nice boy. They don’t seem to mind that he’s not _money_ like them, and that’s something, right?

 

But one time she hears Adam say, with that frown of his that always means he isn’t _quite_ joking, that he was so _Henrietta_ that even his hair was the color of dirt. He’s using that carefully neutral fake accent of his that she _hates_. It makes her very aware of the fact that she twangs out words like “ax” (instead of “ask”) and “ _gawd_ ” and “ _shee_ -it” (“shit”) and never noticed before, because she never knew that this is a problem. She notices it now, and can’t help but hate her own son a little for making her _lesser_ , whether he means to or not.

 

She didn’t mean to eavesdrop, and she backs away to seek refuge in the bathroom, where she touches the ends of her hair -- the hair she gave to both her son and her daughter -- and wonders what that makes _her_. She thinks she’s pretty lucky in at least one respect: she’s all dried up inside, and hasn’t had a tear to cry in years. Nothing can touch her any more. ( _Aw, plays, Gawd, mayke mah hart lahk a stown._ )

 

Robert is home right now, and Adam isn’t, and this is a problem.

 

She found one of Adam’s check stubs earlier when she was cleaning up his room, and she may be a high school drop-out, but she used to be _good_ at math, and she knows those numbers _can’t_ be right. If they are, then he’s making a hell of a lot more than they thought he was.

 

She had frozen; couldn’t figure out if she should put the paper back where it was or hide it somewhere else until Robert is gone and she can burn it. He probably ought to know, but she knows exactly what will happen if he finds out, and she knows what will happen if he doesn’t find out from her.

 

She had _frozen_ , and he had come in to ask her what the hell she was doing that was taking so long, and he _saw it_. And Robert was never good at school stuff, but even _he_ could tell those numbers weren’t right.

 

Now he’s in his chair, drinking, and waiting. She’s in the kitchen, waiting for the shit to hit the fan, numbing herself in advance.

 

 _Oh, please, God,_ she prays, _make my heart like a stone_.

 

Nobody’s answered her prayers yet, so she doesn’t expect anything. She just asks _in case_.

 

 

***

 

 

She poured her fourth drink of the night and downed it in one harsh, long gulp.

 

That idiot preacher said that God works in mysterious ways, and then people said more stupid shit like, “God takes the best first” or “Some people ain’t meant for this world.” She wanted to punch all of them in their stupid faces. She wanted to shape her grief into a knife and stab all of them in the cavity where their hearts ought to be.

 

They all got to go home and get ready to celebrate Christmas next week with their families. She and Robbie buried their baby girl today.

 

Robbie motioned to her to pass the bottle, and she slid it over. They hadn’t said a word since they left the graveyard.

 

If someone had said to her, before, “Your baby girl is gonna die -- _guess how_!” she would never have been able to. The doctor said something about something called “SIDS” but she didn’t really understand, because it seemed like what it boiled down to was: “Shit Happens and We Don’t Know Why. Sorry.” And that “sorry” didn’t really cover it, because that had to be the _shittiest reason_ _ever_ to lose your only child at Christmastime.

 

She took another drink. Then another. Then, for most of the next year, she took another and stumbled through the world in a haze. Robbie was shitty when he drank. She didn’t know whether he reminded her of _his_ father or _her_ father, but he reminded her of _someone’s_ shitty father, and she hated him for it. The first time Robbie hit her, they were both drunk and fighting about something stupid. (Not about Robyn; they never talked about Robyn and they never, ever would.) And he felt really bad about it, and swore it would never happen again, and came home after work with flowers and a fancy chocolate bar with toffee in it that they couldn’t really afford. And then they had a drink together, and everything was about as okay as it got for them.

 

Coming up on the anniversary of Robyn’s death, she got sick of drinking. It wasn’t helping anybody, least of all her, and she thought maybe she ought to just cut to the chase and kill herself. She didn’t want to do it drunk, though. That would be undignified.

 

But when she sobered up the next day, she came to a terrible realization: _she was late_. She walked to the bathroom like a ghost and hauled out the extra test from when… from the last time. Three minutes later, she had confirmation that she was going to be “late” until some time next year.

 

She decided she’d better not kill herself after all. She could believe that a _nice_ God might let her go to heaven, since she was only doing it to see her daughter again, but probably not if she also killed a baby that hadn’t even been born yet. She was pretty pissed about that. What the hell was this, some kinda consolation prize? She’d been _ready_ , and now it was ruined.

 

She quit drinking. Robbie did not. In fact, he drank _more_. He was pretty pissed about the whole thing, and somehow decided it was _her_ fault. Like his ass hadn’t been there too. Robbie wasn’t even Robbie any more. He was not her Robin, who would whistle her tune. Both her birds had died, it seemed, and all that was left was a stranger named Robert, and neither of them with any heart left to love. When she had the presence of mind to think, she felt sorry for the baby. It wasn’t even born yet, and it was already getting the shit end of life.

 

Quitting drinking fucking sucked, especially since she was the only one doing it and the morning sickness was much worse with this one. She made it, though, and on the day before Independence Day, when it was hot as fucking _balls_ and everyone was already miserable to begin with, she gave birth to a teeny-weeny, screaming boy. Robert went home not long after, probably to drink stuff away again, and she almost couldn’t blame him this time. This baby looked an awful lot like the one they’d lost.

 

“I can’t promise you anything,” she informed him on the day of his birth. “I’m already doing my best, and my best don’t have a good track record.”

 

He pursed his tiny baby lips, face all screwed up, as if to say he already had her number.

 

His first full sentence was to ask for milk (“More milt, pwease!”) but his second was, “I sowwy, _pwease_!” She wondered if she ought to teach him how to pray, or if that was something he had to learn on his own. She wondered if she ought to tell him about his sister.

 

She never did either one. What right did she have? She did _nothing_.

 

 

***

 

 

She knows this isn’t going to end well when Robert meets Adam outside. Doesn’t even wait for the mean-looking boy with the mean-looking car to get out of the driveway before he’s on the steps screaming.

 

She moves away from the window. ( _Oh, please, God, make my heart like a stone._ ) There’s a _THUNK_ , and it’s so loud it makes her jump. She’s wondering if _both_ of her kids are dead now, but he can’t be, because Robert’s still shouting.

 

She can’t stand still any more. She peeks through the curtains, in time to see the mean-looking boy has come back -- his face is all full up of love and hate all mixed up -- and he’s making this a _fight_.

 

Adam isn’t standing, his friend is swinging, Robert _goes_ _fucking down_ , and suddenly she doesn’t know what’s happening anymore. Everything is all mixed up; everything is everything all at once. Everyone is everyone all at once, and she’s trying to sort it out.

 

Robbie is hitting Daddy, and she’s on the ground, trying to grab the porch railing?

 

No, that’s not right.

 

Prince Charming is rescuing Cinderella?

 

No, that’s not right either.

 

_Cinderella, dressed in yella, went upstairs to kiss a fella…_

 

She hears someone making a low, keening noise -- is that coming from her?

 

She’s got the phone in her hand. She’s saying, “They’re fighting. Dear Lord, _he’s gonna kill him_!”

 

Too many hims. Which one is which? She’s trying to sort it out.

 

She opens the door and screams at them until the police show, hardly aware of what she’s saying, and it doesn’t matter because nobody’s paying her any mind. Nobody _ever_ pays her any mind anymore.

 

Everything is all mixed up. She’s trying to sort it out. The police are asking questions, and man-handling that boy into their car. She’s looking at her son, begging him with her eyes _don’t fuck this up_ , because they have to find a way to _deal with this as a family_ , and it’s going to be _so much worse_ later if he doesn’t just _shut his ever-lovin’ mouth_.

 

Later, when the other boy brings Adam to get his stuff, it doesn’t even look like anything’s wrong with him, which galls her something _fierce_ because her whole life is in fuckin’ shambles around her. She’s sitting at the kitchen table, having a drink. She wants to ask him if it was fuckin’ worth it. She doesn’t look at him, and he doesn’t look at her, and they don’t say anything. She knows he hates her, and that’s okay, because she kinda hates him too right now. And she hates Robbie for becoming Robert, who doesn’t come when she whistles, and she hates Robyn for dying for no _fuckin’_ reason. And, most of all, she hates herself, for not listening to all the fairy tales that tried to warn her to be careful what she wished for.

 

Her heart feels heavy, and solid, and cold. That was what she wanted, after all.

 

 

***

 

 

There’s a hearing, which she does not attend for about a million reasons, and Robert is sent to prison for ten years, five suspended. It seems like too much and not enough at the same time. She heard that, after that night, Adam is half-deaf now, and that Prince Charming is named _Ronan Lynch_ (that’s gotta be the _stupidest_ name she’s ever heard in her life -- were they all out of Christopher and Jesse at the store?) and he’s _fuckin’ trouble,_ but he suffered no consequences for what he did.

 

Is five years really all half a boy’s hearing is worth? Huh. It doesn’t seem right, somehow. He’ll never be an astronaut now. Then again, he’ll never be able to join the army either.

 

It takes her about three days to regret not speaking to Adam before he left. She figured she’d have time later, but he doesn’t ever come back. She figures that’s about right, that she’s earned that, so she doesn’t go looking for him. (Not exactly. It’s just that she has a lot of time on her hands now.) She sees him around, though, but she makes sure he never sees her.

 

He lives above a church now, which makes her laugh until she cries, and she stays away from there. Mostly. Sort of. A couple times she parks far enough away that she can barely see the place and watches him come and go, his skinny shoulders hunched and his jaw set to keep out the world.

 

God, he looks just like her. Not just the hair and the cheekbones.

 

She watches the mean-looking car come and go too, presumably containing Prince Charming -- _Ronan Lynch_ , that is -- and she’s vaguely worried about that. Particularly when she begins to suspect that Robert’s favorite insult applies to at least _one_ of Adam’s friends.

 

It’s not that she’s bothered by the notion that her son might have a boyfriend instead of a girlfriend. Not really. Okay, it’s a little weird, but she’s his _mother_ , so it’s not like she didn’t know _something_. And even if she were bothered by that sort of thing in general (and, okay, she kind of is… maybe? She was raised to know right from wrong, but she’s kinda having a hard time giving a shit, to be honest…) she wouldn’t really have a right to be bothered by anything her son does. It’s just that after all this mess, she thinks he ought to do better than someone who gets love and hate all mixed up, because that’s where _she_ went wrong.

 

She sees the nice boy, the one with the orange car, and a tiny girl -- more a doll than a real, live young woman -- while she’s walking out of the grocery store one day. For a second, she thinks another boy is with them, but she must have been wrong, because when her eyes glance their way it’s just the two of them. The boy stares at her, his mouth gaping. His face is like a child, all open and raw.

 

Her face is a stone, like her heart. She walks right past them and pretends she has no idea who they are.

 

She hears a miniature clomping sound behind her, and the girl calling, “Mrs. Parrish, _please_ wait!”

 

She doesn’t -- why the hell would she? -- but the girl catches up with her anyway. Miniature girl is holding a gigantic cell phone in her tiny hand and writing something down on a napkin with a blue Sharpie. The girl reminds her of a shrew, or a wolverine, or one of those vicious pygmy tribes in Africa or South America, or wherever.

 

“Here,” the girl says breathlessly, handing over the napkin. “There’s a place in Richmond you can go, if you need it.”

 

She looks at the napkin, mouthing the words “Women’s Shelter” and snarls, “I _beg_ your pardon?!”

 

“Look,” the girl says matter-of-factly, blowing a wisp of dark hair out of her face, “you can be safe for five years, or you can be safe forever. Just think about it.”

 

She says nothing, just gives her the blank stare. The girl shrugs. Then she runs back to, presumably, her boyfriend.

 

“Don’t you _dare_ tell Adam about this,” the girl barks at the boy, pointing her tiny finger in his face. “He has enough to worry about.”

 

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Jane,” he replies earnestly, his hand over his heart and his face an open book of adoration.

 

 

***

 

 

It takes her a while to make a decision, mostly because before she can make one she has to admit there’s a choice to be made, and she refuses to think about it at all. The napkin stays in her purse and she only looks at it out of the corner of her eye. Like someone’s going to pop out and give her a good one for being so ungrateful.

 

But she’s running out of money, and the shit job she got after Robert’s sentencing doesn’t pay much. She’s saving every bit she can, though, without thinking about why.

 

Then one day she decides to sell everything she doesn’t need. Turns out, there’s a _lot_ she doesn’t need.

 

Okay, so it’s a very _specific_ day in May, about a month after the whole town goes _batshit_ because that rich boy with the orange car -- Adam’s friend, Jane’s boyfriend -- is missing.

 

There’s not much to sell, in the end, though the trailer and the lot it’s on get her a decent amount. She trades in the shitty old truck and gets a used Yaris because she doesn’t need much and it gets _amazing_ mileage. It’s a two-door, manual, and doesn’t have auto windows or locks, but she can handle that. Hell, it’s the nicest thing she’s ever owned. It’s shiny. It’s _canary yellow_. All her clothes and the few possessions she’s keeping are in the back.

 

She’s got almost ten _thousand_ bucks left over, and she could almost faint just thinking about it. She doesn’t even remember the last time their bank account had a four-digit balance for more than five seconds. It’s probably never happened before.

 

She withdraws every last penny and takes her name off the account. She can’t close it because it’s a joint account and they would both have to be there, but that doesn’t matter. Then -- ignoring the small-town-everybody-knows-your-business side eye she’s getting from everyone, and the condescending _Mrs. Parrish_ -ing -- she asks the teller if she can have an envelope. She uses the teller’s pen to write something on the back, taking her sweet time.

 

For the first time in -- oh, God -- _twenty years_ she walks out of a place with what Momma used to call her “hoity-toity flouncing.” She’s not _that_ old, after all, even if she feels it most days. And, even if nobody knows it yet, she’s leaving this shitty town for good, so screw _all of them_.

 

She drives to Richmond with the windows down, because it’s not _quite_ summer yet, and fiddles with the radio to find something she can listen to. She realizes, with dismay, that all the songs she and her friends listened to _before_ are playing on an _oldies station_ now. They call it “classic” but she knows what they really mean. They’re playing “I Can Love You Like That” and she hasn’t heard that song in _years_. She’s surprised to find it sends a shooting pain through the place where her heart is supposed to be -- so surprised that she swerves the car a little, and quickly hits the buttons on the dash to change the station.

 

The song she ends up on is something newer, something she’s never heard before, though the singer’s voice is familiar. She had cut his picture out of one of Lisa or Donna’s magazines once and kept it in her room. The fact that this guy is still kicking around is comforting, because that means maybe she can too. The song, not so much. It’s really good; it sounds like the song you listen to after “Fell On Black Days” -- all about waiting for someone who’s dead and gone. She mouths the words to herself (“ _I’ll wait for you there, like a stone; I’ll wait for you there, alone_ ”) to remember them so she can look it up later.

 

It occurs to her that she has about four thousand bucks in her purse, and she’s the only one with a say over it. She can probably get herself a C.D. Maybe even a little C.D. player, so she can listen to it outside the car too, when she gets to where she’s going.

 

There’s a manila envelope in the passenger seat next to her, weighted down by her purse. Inside are the following things: one bulging bank envelope with a note on the back, one slip of paper with a name and address on it, one picture of Robyn Ella Parrish. She was very particular in choosing this photo. It’s _just_ Robyn, alone, not with either of her parents, because she doesn’t want any unpleasant associations.

 

Her plan, after she gets to the address on the napkin that’s been hiding in her purse for weeks, is to mail it to Jane’s house, where all those crazy women live, and let _her_ decide if Adam should have it. She wants him to have it -- it’s about as close to an apology as she knows how to make right now -- but she can recognize she might not be the best person to make that kind of decision.

 

First she needs to make a stop at the library. She needs the librarian to help her look some stuff up on the computer, because she hasn’t touched one since school and they’re so _different_ now. Much more complicated than she’s used to.

 

In the most insane coincidence ever, she sees _his car_ in the Richmond Public Library parking lot. Without even thinking, she parks right next to it. She knows this patchwork piece of crap, even by her standards, is his. She’s seen it around town and there’s a pretty distinctive bumper sticker -- black with neon green lettering that looks like it’s dripping -- slapped haphazardly on the back fender. She doesn’t know what “Squash One! Squash Two!” means, or why on _earth_ her son would choose this particular sticker and then put it on _crooked_. And it looks like maybe somebody tried to scratch it off, but failed? It doesn’t seem like him at all. Then again, how well does she really know him? Once she would have said that he would never press charges against his own father, not that anyone would have asked.

 

She sits in her new (new to her, only twenty-thousand miles on it) car and just stares for a minute. It’s a good thing she does, because the mean-looking car comes squealing into the lot, coming to rest on the other side of Adam’s. She doesn’t recognize it until _Ronan Lynch_ and Jane the miniature girl climb out. He slams his door and, two cars down with the doors locked, she winces. But he doesn’t look angry; they both look _worried_.

 

She gives them a head start, then follows them into the library. It’s not really following; she was going there anyway, and she got there first.

 

It’s not difficult to find them. _Ronan Lynch_ doesn’t exactly have a library voice. By the time she finds a place to hide where she can see and hear them, the conversation has already started and gone south.

 

“You have to fucking _stop this_ ,” _Ronan Lynch_ says, rubbing his hand over the back of his buzzed head. Some kind of thorny tattoo is peeking out of his black wife-beater, and she can’t decide if she wants to find out what it is or roll her eyes. (Because _of course_ he has tattoos. They go with his stupid fast car and his _fuck-you_ face, the asshole.) He sounds desperately frustrated. “Did you even sleep last night?”

 

He _finally_ moves around to the other side of the table, and now she can see Adam. He does look tired, even for him. He’s pale, and his eyes are all red-rimmed with dark shadows underneath. His shoulders are stiff and he’s got his old mule face on, and she almost laughs and ruins everything. _Good luck with_ that _, tattoo boy,_ she thinks, smug in her anger. Whatever Adam is doing, he’s _doing it_ , and he’s doing it _himself_ , and he’s doing it _his way_.

 

“You’re one to talk,” Adam says evenly. He _must_ be tired, because he’s not faking his accent. He rubs his face and turns the page of the enormous book on the table in front of him. “I have to be at Columbia in less than three months. This can’t wait.”

 

Isn’t Columbia one of those Ivy League schools? In New York or something? She tries hard not to smile, but it doesn’t work. Fuck it -- he did it, all by himself, and she’s proud of him.

 

“Adam,” Jane says gently. “You know we miss him too. And we’re _going_ to find a way to fix this. But you can’t keep killing yourself over this _every single day_. We’re _not_ trading you for… for Gansey.”

 

“This is _my fault_ ,” Adam snaps, glaring at them.

 

“I’m the one who kissed him.” Jane’s voice is full of tears, and she wonders what that means, what they’re _really_ laying on the table.

 

Adam shakes his head. He always was a responsible boy. “ _My_ arrogance. I thought I had this, and I fucked it up. They _tricked us._ We all busted our _asses_ to wake Glendower up, and what did he say?” They both start to reply, but he cuts them off. “One favor, whatever we want. Be careful what you wish for, right?”

 

He laughs harshly, and rubs his face again. He looks so _old_. He looks like a man, not her un-asked-for boy, and she wonders what kind of man he would look like if someone had loved him enough to teach him better.

 

“Well, _fuck Glendower_ , and _fuck Artemus_. They don’t tell me what to do -- _I’m_ the magician! And I say Gansey is _not_ going to be Glendower Redux. Either _they_ fix this, or _I_ do, but I’m not letting those fuckers out of Cabeswater until Gansey is awake and well again. _Sic dicit deus damnati magus_.”

 

She literally has _no idea_ what they’re talking about. The name Gansey rings a bell -- of course it does, he was Adam’s friend with the orange car, who went missing about a month ago. Do they know where that boy is? She can’t imagine Adam having anything to do with his friend disappearing, but he seems to think it’s his fault. He’s sort of implied that he’s kidnapped two people – Artemus and Glendower, and what kinda names are _those_? Is it a gang thing? – and is holding them hostage against the return of his friend. That doesn’t sound like her Adam at all. Then again, she doesn’t really know him, and he obviously needs some sleep, because he also just said he was a magician.

 

 _Ronan Lynch_ , in addition to not having a library voice, is about as able to stand still as a three-year-old in a toy store at Christmas. He’s been shifting around this whole time. He jerks forward, gently lifts Adam’s chin up so they’re looking at each other. Well, it would seem she was right about _that_.

 

“I’m not saying don’t do it. I’m saying you’re not an army of one anymore. Go get some fucking _food_. I skipped a lot of Bio, but I do know that food’s a thing people need to live. I’ll handle this shit until you get back.”

 

Adam leans back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest, and raises his eyebrows. “ _You’re_ going to study? Ronan ‘Truancy is the New Black’ Lynch is going to sit here with all these big, big books and _read them_? And take notes, on little notecards, in the proper format? Quietly enough to not get kicked out?” His mouth quirks up into a little smile that she’s never seen before.

 

“My middle name is ‘Bringing-Sexy-Back’ -- jeez, Parrish, get it right.” Adam doesn’t take the bait, so he starts nodding. “Fuck yeah, man. I got this shit. The maggot can help me sound out the big words. They did reading in public school, right?”

 

Jane rolls her eyes and gets straight to the point. “My mom and Calla are outside, waiting to take you to the burger of your dreams. No,” she insists when he opens his mouth to protest. “You haven’t slept in days. You’re not driving anywhere, because you are currently a menace to all the nice people of Richmond who just want to leave Point A and arrive at Point B intact. Now get out of here, before Ronan realizes that book doesn’t have any explosions in it.”

 

Adam chuckles a little -- a dry, humorless sound -- and stretches as he stands. She knows from experience that his back will have made a series of disturbing popping and cracking sounds.

 

“All right, y’all win. I’ll be back in thirty minutes, an hour tops.”

 

“We’ll be waiting,” Jane assures him, “unless I kill Ronan before then.”

 

When Adam’s far enough away, _Ronan Lynch_ asks Jane, “Do you think they can convince him to sleep?”

 

“Well, if Calla can’t bully him into it, my mom’s got a cup of sleepy-time tea she’s going to tell him is for energy.”

 

When _Ronan Lynch_ sneers, it looks like God made his face with that specific expression in mind. “Oh, yeah, _that’ll_ work. Hot plant water and shit. The fuckdid I let you handle this?”

 

Jane replies with her own God-given face: one that is piercing and scornful. “Calla mixed in a few crushed-up sleeping pills. He’s a goner until mid-morning tomorrow, at least. Speaking of which,” she reaches into her purse and whips out a card, “I borrowed your credit card and rented a few hotel rooms. Five star. Historic District.”

 

“They better have those fancy balconies with a view and shit. Only the best for us,” he replies easily, not upset at all about this girl stealing his money. He ruffles her spiky hair as he sits down in Adam’s chair, ruining the house of cards that was her tiny ponytail. He stares at the book for a minute before quietly saying, “He’s going to be okay.”

 

“We all are,” Jane replies firmly. “We’re _going_ to wake Gansey, we’re going to fix him up, and fixing Gansey will fix the rest of us.” Jane says this like she _really_ needs to believe it, and for that poor girl’s sake, she hopes whatever it is they’re doing works out in their favor.

 

She closes her eyes and leans back against the bookshelf. She knows why she’s still here -- _not_ to eavesdrop on nonsense conversations, thanks -- she just has to work up the courage to _do it_. Before she can talk herself out of anything, she walks over to the table where they’re sorting through the fortress of books her son had collected and quietly slips into the chair across from them. They both look up at once, recognize her, and make very interesting faces.

 

She thinks this might be the first time in her life anyone has looked at her with fear. Anger, resignation, hatred, even love. Never fear. It’s a weird feeling. She almost wants to turn around and see if someone else is standing behind her. Robert, maybe, or Daddy, or even Adam, who has somehow become fearsome in his own right.

 

“Hey, Ronan,” she says with a calm that surprises her. “Hey, Jane.”

 

Jane looks at her with something like horror, then her face crumples. She has no idea what she’s done wrong. (That feeling _isn’t_ new.)

 

“ _Jesus_ ,” Ronan snarls, putting an arm around the miniature girl and pulling her close. “Her name is _Blue_.”

 

And now she’s confused. “I’m sorry,” she says, forgetting her (new/old) self for a minute and automatically ducking her head out of habit. “I thought I heard…”

 

“You heard fucking _wrong_. Look, you can’t be here. You need to get the fuck out of here.”

 

He’s glaring at her, but she knows birds, knows the difference between a squawk and a peck, and this boy is a bird -- a Raven boy.

 

“She said Adam was gone till morning,” she points out. “I didn’t come here to see him; I’m here to see you. I need help with somethin’.”

 

They look at her like they can’t even believe she’s real. That’s okay. She’s had trouble believing it sometimes too.

 

“You were _listening to our conversation_?!” Ja--Blue asks with disgust.

 

“I’m not helping you with _shit_ , lady, and you fucking know why.”

 

Moment of truth: _does she still got it_? This imaginary magical power from her childhood?

 

“Hush now,” she tells them both firmly, with her best “I’m the adult here” face. “I wasn’t askin’.” To her surprise, they’re silent, and she says, “You’re the one who takes care of my son now.”

 

She looks at the Raven boy when she says this, looks him right in the eye. He has blue eyes too, like her children, but Robyn and Adam’s eyes are cool and light, like they’ve been sun-bleached on the line, and his are dark and vibrant, like they stole color from the world around him.

 

If looks could kill… but he’s not saying anything, at least. He doesn’t need to. She _sees_ him, and she knows that his heart is a pounding drum that says, _Adam, Adam, Adam_.

 

She places the manila envelope on the table and opens it. She takes out the bank envelope and hands it to Ronan.

 

“Give this to him. It’s cash, so he doesn’t have to put it on his taxes.”  She’s pretty sure that’s illegal, but people do it all the time and she doesn’t want anyone getting Adam’s money, not even Uncle Sam.

 

They see the money inside. Blue whistles. Ronan just frowns at her, and flips the envelope over. On the back she had written, “You done it your way, you old mule. Whatever it is, you keep doing it.”

 

“You’re supposed to give people gifts when they graduate,” she says.

 

 _And when they leave_ , she doesn’t say. She’s not dwelling on that, though, and she doesn’t want to take too long. She doesn’t know how long they’re willing to listen to the likes of _her_ , how long before this bird-spell of hers wears off.

 

“This,” she says, touching the manila envelope, “is up to you. You give it to him or you handle it yourself. Either way --” she pulls out a piece of paper -- “I need _someone_ to go to this address every year on May twenty-second, and give _this girl_ a… a yellow daisy.”

 

Daisies are cheerful flowers, and not too expensive. It seems right.

 

Blue frowns at the paper and says, “That’s a graveyard.”

 

“I already know that, thanks.” It comes out a little more smart-ass than she meant it to, but she sticks with it.

 

“ _Robyn Ella_ Parrish?” Ronan says it like a question.

 

She crosses her arms, sets her jaw to “stubborn” and says, “ _Quid pro quo_ , Clarice.” It’s not a very funny joke, but in her defense it’s the first joke she’s made in years. She’ll get the hang of it again. Eventually.

 

“I’m not telling you shit about him.” His voice is flat and informative.

 

She’s a master at the art of the stare, but he’s only a… what’s right above an apprentice? He can’t keep everything he feels from leaking out of his eyes. She’s known that trick for decades.

 

“Fine. It’s all in there,” she tells him, because she’s not dragging this shit out right now. She just wants to say her piece and disappear. “Take a look, decide if you wanna give it to him or not. _After_ he gets some sleep.”

 

“How is this even our decision?” Blue wants to know.

 

She manages a smirk. “I think I kinda lost the right to do the mom thing, don’t you?”

 

Ronan snorts, and mutters, “I’ll say.” Blue makes like she’s going to smack him on the shoulder, then changes her mind with a similar snort.

 

She stands up and brushes off her skirt, even though there’s nothing on it. “And I don’t know what kinda crazy stuff you kids are into, but… but I know there are worse things out there than gettin’ smacked around every now and then,” she says this quietly and -- _fuck_ \-- her voice breaks a little. Blue’s eyebrows raise, and Ronan’s face looks like a knife. “So, if anything happens to my son that’s worse than what he ran away from, I’m holding _you_ responsible.”

 

She turns to go, but the miniature girl, Blue, stops her. “Mrs. Parrish?”

 

She sighs. “Heather. Just Heather, thanks.” Not Mrs. Parrish. Not Cinderella.

 

They both look so startled by this that she suspects she may have said that last part out loud. Maybe. Maybe not. Could just be that these are kids still, and they think she’s very old. Old people, parents, they’re nameless things, and she’s worse than most: she’s the sidekick of a bogeyman.

 

She tries it out: “Heather…” and shakes her head. “You’re leaving.”

 

It’s not really a question, so she doesn’t really have to answer. But it knocks that sullenly blank look right off Ronan’s face, so she does.

 

“Yeah. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone where for.”

 

Blue frowns. “But what if Adam --”

 

“Sweetie, no,” she cuts her off with a shake of her head.

 

She’s going for kind, but it comes off more condescending. Plus, this girl’s not really the “sweetie” kind. And since when does she call people “sweetie” anyway?

 

“He’s not coming look for me.”

 

“But --”

 

“And I don’t think I want him to. Not till we’ve both had some time. Moms are people too,” she says, her quiet voice revealing more than she means to, “even the shitty ones.”

 

After twenty years -- no, a _lifetime_ \-- of using words like they cost money, she’s exhausted. She turns and walks away, back to her new car, and hopes that having a heart _not_ made of stone isn’t as lonely as it seems right now.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, um, sorry for this. I had every intention of my first TRC fic being majorly pathetic Pynch fluff... and then this happened instead. I'm not really sure how, or if it's even any good. I suspect it's not, but I thought I'd put it out there anyway.
> 
> Basically, I was thinking about Mrs. Parrish, who has such a small part in the books she doesn't even get a name of her own. And, look, I'm no expert on domestic violence, but it feels pretty safe to bet that things were probably pretty shitty for her too. It made me feel really sorry for her, and read her few, very brief book appearances in a different light. Basically, I wanted to make her a person, I guess? Not good or bad, necessarily, but real. And then I felt really sorry for her, so I needed to make her safe, and give her a chance to get better. (I mean, I sent her husband to jail for ten years, but five were suspended and, let's face it, these assholes get out on "good behavior" all the time.)
> 
> Now, as for our raven boys and their queen: I'm working under the assumption that Gansey is going to become a "sleeping king" like Glendower or Arthur. In my head, the remaining four all lose their shit initially, and then react in very different ways. Ronan and Blue, who are so similar, toughen up, because Gansey, Adam, and (presumably) Noah need them to be strong. Adam (my wee bebe!) blames himself, has BEEN blaming himself before he ever did anything wrong, because he has blaming himself down to a fucking science. Adam (my darling prickly hedgehog!) reacts by trapping Glendower and Artemus inside Cabeswater until he can figure out how to free Gansey, which he is busting his ass trying to do before he starts college in the fall. I may explore all that later in a different story, but it had no place here, except in the snippets Heather saw.


End file.
